Broken Frontier

There are plenty of zombie comics on the market these days, but most of them are aimed at adolescent, if not, adult readers. Not so in the case of Xombie: Reanimated, James Farr’s all-ages online comic about the world’s first sentient zombie, recently brought to the printed page by Devil’s Due.

BROKEN FRONTIER: Xombie’s transition to the printed page is potentially reaching a new audience unfamiliar with the online animation. For those new to the characters how would you define the series’ concept and story to date?

JAMES FARR: To date the story centers on Dirge, the world’s first sentient zombie, who for reasons unknown to him, has retained his conscious mind.  Aside from dealing with the day to day annoyances of being undead, he’s forced to figure out what sort of man he wants to be. 

Should he use his newfound status to help the living, or give in to his urges and eat them all? 
With the great equalizer come and gone, what motivates a person to do good instead of bad? I thought it would be acutely interesting to follow a small group of zombies, and see how each of them individually dealt with these questions.  Plus, it was something I had never seen before.

BF: Xombie doesn’t have the most obvious subject matter for a series that’s aiming for a broader audience. How did you approach the challenge of creating a zombie series/comic book with an all-ages appeal?

JF: Not only was the story a reaction to the zombie genre, but the style was as well.  Most of the time, I think story-tellers (zombie story-tellers in particular) rely so heavily on blood and gore, they completely ignore the story itself.  We’ve seen heads and limbs chopped off in almost every conceivable way, so while that’s still pretty cool, it wasn’t what I wanted to focus on.  Again, the idea was to catch people off guard with something new. 

BF: Zombies are everywhere in comics at the moment. What is it, do you think, that gives them such macabre appeal?

JF: Well, personally, I am horrified by death. It’s something you hate to dwell on, but something that’s always creeping up on you.  The idea that death could actually stand up and chase you down – I figure that’s about as close to a primordial fear as it gets. So, at least for me, zombies pretty much epitomize that lingering fear. 

Then again, they also give people an outlet to destroy their fellow humans without any feeling of guilt.  Honestly, I’m not sure which is scarier.

BF: Dirge is certainly not a traditional member of the walking dead. What was your inspiration for such a different take on zombie lore?

JF: Dirge, and Xombie as a whole, was my reaction to watching a string of zombie movies all following the same basic premise.  After a while, the frustration started to set in. I was tired of watching the small group of attractive humans get picked off one after the other.  I wanted to know what the zombies were thinking.  Xombie and Dirge were ways for me to explore the zombies themselves, who I personally think are the stars of the show. Not the people.

BF: What were the influences for the look of the series and characters? I kept thinking of Bruce Timm and Tim Burton when viewing the original animated episodes…

JF: Ha. Well, the early episodes basically constituted my gradual artistic progression over 3 or 4 years’ time.  As a result, they pretty much echoed whatever I was watching from moment to moment. Samurai Jack, Nightmare Before Christmas, etc.  If I were a better artist, the look may have evolved very differently. But as it stands, I think it worked out pretty well.  And it left something flexible enough for other artists to play with, and that has been incredible to see.

BF: Why the move into comics for the second part of the trilogy of Xombie stories?

JF: Xombie was always intended as a trilogy of films, and honestly, there are few mediums which can really convey something cinematically with any success.  Comics is one of them. And at its heart, Xombie is a big, cinematic adventure.  Plus, it was a great way to start evolving the look of the characters, and breaking through the artistic ceiling my work had created.  Secret answer number 3 – movie studios are much more likely to option a comic than they are a Flash animated series.  So we’ll see what happens.

BF: Are there plans to eventually have all three parts of the trilogy presented in both media? Or are you looking to widen the potential audience by pulling in comics fans, like myself, who picked up the Xombie Reanimated book and then felt compelled to check out the online animation for more on the characters’ back story?

JF: I doubt I have the talent to do the comics justice as an animated series by myself.  The story gets so ridiculously huge toward the end, with thousands of characters per page.  It would take a whole studio to put that in motion. But, you never know.  A studio still might.

BF: How difficult was it to adapt from the medium of animation to the comic strip form given the differing storytelling opportunities of both media?

JF: Since the scripts for Dead On Arrival, Reanimated and the third instalment have been written for years, every incarnation of Xombie has been an adaptation. So at this point it’s getting pretty easy, mainly because I know the story frontwards and backwards. I think the only true challenge was the length.  Compressing the entire story arc into six issues was really scary. But in the end, it was the right decision, and resulted in a really tight pace. I think that helps keep it interesting, and forces something big to happen every couple of pages. Which is cool.

BF: The first issue is certainly “new reader-friendly”. Was there a conscious effort to make it as accessible as possible or were you expecting the readership to largely comprise the online fans?

JF: It was hard to say. My goal was to make issue 1 completely accessible without being an annoying 22 page info-dump.  I hate those.  But yes, we even ditched a couple arcs that were set up in the book, for fear of confusing new fans.  I’m sure we’ll pick the threads up later (translation: please buy the comics so we can make more), but at least for the first issue or two, we wanted to keep it simple.  The concept of Dirge, Nephthys and the other sentient zombies can be quite a bit to absorb. So first things first.

BF: On the subject of the animated run any news when the tenth and final episode will be available?

JF: I would not be surprised if it popped up around the time the Reanimated trade paperback hits, coming up around October.

BF: What’s coming up for Dirge, Zoe and company as the comic’s storyline progresses?

JF: The gradual unravelling of a few key mysteries – i.e. what is the plague and where did it come from? Who is Dirge?  What’s with the bird on Zoe’s shirt?  But most importantly, can the humans get past what Dirge and Nephthys are, and see what they have the potential to be?  The idea of seeing humans and zombies work side by side was completely exciting to me. Hope everyone else agrees.

BF: And finally, with an online series, a comic book, a book and a potential movie all in various stages of completion what’s next for the Xombie franchise?

JF: Toys and lots of them. And the movie looms tantalizingly close.  Short term, however, I’d love to do another comic book series and pick up where we leave off.  It’s been the greatest writing experience I’ve ever had. I just hope when its over, everyone wants more.

Xombie #3 (previewed in this article) goes on sale in June. As part of Devil’s Due week, you can read the first issue in full here .